MARGARET MCLEAN: Prosecution witness couldn't handle the truth

Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! That’s what the jackhammer sounded like in Courtroom 11 during Hank Brennan’s cross-examination of former FBI agent John Morris.

Margaret McLean

Liar! Liar! Liar! Liar! That’s what the jackhammer sounded like in Courtroom 11 during Hank Brennan’s cross-examination of former FBI agent John Morris.

“You lied to your wife about your secretary?”

“You lied to your secretary about money?”

“You had to commit a second lie to cover up your first lie?”

Whitey also called Morris a liar, but he couldn’t resist using an expletive.

If Morris is fodder for the defense, why did the government call him? Morris is another important brick in the government’s foundation: FBI leak – to Bulger – to murder. Convicted former Special Agent John Connolly knows the story, too, but he’s not talking. That’s why they had to grant Morris immunity to testify.

The government will stress in closing arguments that jurors don’t have to like Morris, but they should believe him now. Morris testified on direct examination that Brian Halloran had been arrested on murder charges and decided to cooperate in the investigation into the murder of Roger Wheeler in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The jury heard testimony from John Martorano that he shot Wheeler “between the eyes” because he refused to sell Miami based World Jai Alai to Bulger and his co-conspirators. According to Martorano, the Bulger group had arranged to skim $10,000 per week from the business and needed to get rid of Wheeler.

Two FBI agents assigned to the Wheeler investigation asked Morris for his assessment of Halloran. They had wired Halloran with a recording device. Witness security was under Morris’s supervision, and he recommended that Halloran be placed in the witness protection program. Morris testified he told Connolly about Halloran’s cooperation regarding the Wheeler murder. He admitted exercising “bad judgment” and that he had placed the informant “in a bad position.” Morris also knew Connolly had discussed the matter with Bulger and Flemmi. He soon learned that Halloran and Michael Donahue, an innocent victim, had been murdered. Morris then did his best to cover for Bulger and Flemmi by padding Bulger’s informant file with false reports.

The defense hammered Morris to show jurors why they shouldn’t believe him now or ever. Brennan forced Morris to admit that he often lied to benefit himself. Morris admitted he was corrupt. In fact, he was corrupt before he met John Connolly. He planted a fake bomb under a guy’s car to scare him into cooperating, and then called in the bomb to police. Morris said he hadn’t considered whether his actions would be dangerous to the public as emergency vehicles rushed to the scene.

Morris accepted money and expensive wine from Bulger and Flemmi. He testified on direct examination that a month after Halloran and Donahue were murdered, he called his “best friend” John Connolly and asked if Bulger and Flemmi would spring for a $1,000 airline ticket to fly his girlfriend down south to a resort for a conference. He was cheating on his wife and recalled that Connolly had mentioned: “These guys really like you; if there’s anything you ever wanted or needed, just ask.”

Morris received the money and enjoyed a pleasant mini-vacation with his paramour.

Brennan fired up the jackhammer.

“Your job is to protect the citizens?” he asked.

“How much money did it cost to do something like this?”

“This involves a citizen’s life?

“How much is that bottle of wine worth, Mr. Morris?”

Morris lowered his head. “I knew that I was clearly compromised.”

The bribes led to another topic that keeps coming up at trial: the issue of whether Whitey was an FBI informant. “Truth is, Mr. Bulger was buying, he wasn’t selling, was he?” Brennan asked Morris.

That question points to the defense theory that Whitey was not an informant because Bulger paid Morris $7000 for information. The government wants jurors to believe the opposite: that Whitey was a valuable Top-Echelon informant who ended up corrupting his handlers, got tipped about investigations, and committed multiple murders. Department of Justice lawyer James Marra testified about Whitey’s 700 page informant file, and how he furnished valuable information for years, ratting people out from the Italian mafia to friends from South Boston.

The defense theory is that corrupt FBI agents fabricated the voluminous informant file to make it look like Whitey was an informant to cover up their illegal activities. In his opening statement, Carney made a promise to the jurors that the FBI informant file on Whitey was trumped up by agents Connolly and Morris to justify keeping him open because they were getting paid off by Whitey for information. Both Morris and Connolly had expensive tastes and enjoyed the lavish lifestyle.

That’s why Brennan spent so much time on Marra’s cross-examination. Brennan emphasized that most of the file is predicated on fabrication, omissions, and unverified reports. The legal strategy is to create reasonable doubt, make jurors lose faith in the justice system, and, ultimately, punish the government with not guilty verdicts against Whitey Bulger.

As jurors break for Independence Day next week, how will the concept of patriotism play out as they ponder this one?